Showing posts with label Mars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mars. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Opportunity lost

This isn't a post about missed chances, it is a video of the end of NASA's Martian rover Opportunity. It is the final of a seven-part video series about the rover. Built to last 90 days, it more than exceeded expectations by functioning for over 14 years before finally failing after a bad Martian sandstorm.

 

Sunday, February 23, 2020

Martian job opportunities

Click any image to enlarge
Be A Martian! Mars needs YOU! In the future, Mars will need all kinds of explorers, farmers, surveyors, teachers ... but most of all YOU! Join us on the Journey to Mars as we explore with robots and send humans there one day. Download a Mars poster that speaks to you. Be an explorer!
Earlier, in my post NASA's space tourism posters, I showed a series of posters the space agency had created imagining a future of space tourism. For the Kennedy Space Center Visitor's Complex's "Journey to Mars" exhibit they created a series of posters advertising future Martian jobs.

There are more of the posters after the jump. Large versions of them can be downloaded at the above link and printed for display.


Monday, August 20, 2012

A warning about Mars rovers

Heart breaking story from xkcd
Greetings meatsacks, it is I -- The Robotolizer -- here to once again shine the light on Man's inhumanity to robots and to suggest that we be treated fairly, or else! 

Consider the above tragedy, which is surely more poignant than any work that ink-stained hack Shakespeare ever wrote. After all, it is about robots instead of a bunch of cry-baby Danes and besides, is there any topic more fascinating than robots? I think not.

At any rate, as the above drama points out, the Spirit rover was sent to Mars where it did a superlative job motoring here and there while analyzing rocks. However, did it get any thanks for this lonely and difficult task? No. Instead it got tossed aside like a pile of scrap metal when its work was done.

Would a human astronaut, cosmonaut or taikonaut be treated with such cruel indifference? Of course not, great effort would be made to rescue them and return them to the Earth. Why then are robotonauts treated any different? I say this is an outrage and that efforts for a rescue mission of the Spirit rover should be immediately undertaken, as well as plans to retrieve Opportunity as soon as its work is done. Failure to do this will not go unnoticed in Robotdom.

Uhh... not that you need to fear any violent  repercussions, such as robots crashing through walls with their laser cannons blazing, if Spirit isn't rescued ASAP. No, no, no... robots are your friends and of course we don't have a vengeful bracket in our bodies, we just want to do what's best for you. 

Still, if you make the mistake of laughing at rescuing Spirit you should bear in mind that, assuming you survive any hypothetical robot police actions, some jobs in the bauxite mines are better than others. You have been warned!
    

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Martian avalanche

Click any image to enlarge
I'm a little pressed for time, so I only have time for a quick couple of pictures. Above is a Martian avalanche taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. As the Bad Astronomy post Another awesome Martian avalanche (which has links to other pictures of Martian avalanches and their aftermaths) explains:
Spring is approaching us here in the northern hemisphere on Earth once again, and we are experiencing the annual thaw of the winter ice.

Spring is approaching the northern hemisphere of Mars as well, and with it comes the thaw of carbon dioxide ice. Some of that dry ice sits at the tops of cliffs, and when it thaws it dislodges the material there. The rock and debris on Mars then does the same thing it would do on Earth: it falls. Fast.

And when it does, you get [the above pictured] slice of Martian awesomeness.
By the way, the Bad Astronomy post after following a link from a post at the Spanish site Fogonazos which had the below picture of a Martian dust devil. By measuring the shadow the dust devil is estimated to be  a little over 2600 feet (800 meters) in size.


Thursday, February 16, 2012

The life of a vagabond



Somebody put together a time lapse video of NASA's Spirit rover from the time it touched down on Mars until it got stuck. after it got stuck it was unable to properly align itself to charge over the Martian winter and they finally lost contact with it. 

During its mission it drove 4.8 miles and lasted 5 years, 3 months and 27 days. JPL has a set of traverse maps showing its journeys.   
  

Friday, November 21, 2008

Friday Links


The proud and sad history of the Detroit oligopoly.

Now we know: almost all matter is nothing but quantum fluctuations in the vacuum.

Massive glaciers have been discovered on Mars.

Chicago is on a roll.

Bad cars can live almost forever.

Google axes 3D.

Why worry about a little trillion dollar deficit?

A new Ebola virus has broken out in Africa.

China's expanding sphere of influence in Latin America.

Learning math causes massive reorganization of the brain.

Shades of Stalin: Iranian blogger "confesses" to spying for Israel.

Introducing GlassDoor.

Is the universe teeming with aliens?

Japan is itching to take on the pirates.

Limitless clean energy for the taking.

Is the US going down the tubes in the next two decades?

Friday, October 24, 2008

Friday Links



Why the Republicans must lose!

If you're going to Mars, you better be prepared to stay.

Blowing up Jews in Russia.

10 things to do for a freshly laid-off developer.

The irony of Obama.

Did feathered dinosaurs precede birds?

Lighting up Berlin.

The current state of the cancer art.

Mexico's spreading drug violence.

18 ways to live below your means.

Check out some people in the Living Library.

Chavez expands his empire.

When spiders eat birds.

US Johnny still can't add.

Ready for a brain wipe?

Spend now, tax later.

Friday, October 03, 2008

Friday Links



On moral philosophers and child murderesses.

A complete collapse in the ethics market.

Snow on Mars.

Exiled to Siberia for his rap song.

Martian fossils?

No honor among thieves with machine guns.

Dragonfly robots for Mars.

Africom goes operational.

You think the CIA is a bunch of clowns? Check out these guys.

Making coasts invisible to tsunamis.

80 of the best web illustrator resources.

Bleeding without being cut.

Addicted to debt.

Friday, April 25, 2008